from the book

Our failure to master the complexity of software results in projects that are late, over budget, and deficient in their stated requirements. We often call this condition the software crisis, but frankly, a malady that has carried on this long must be called normal. Sadly, this crisis translates into the squandering of human resources—a most precious commodity—as well as a considerable loss of opportunities. There are simply not enough good developers around to create all the new software that users need. Furthermore, a significant number of the development personnel in any given organization must often be dedicated to the maintenance or preservation of geriatric software. Given the indirect as well as the direct contribution of software to the economic base of most industrialized countries, and considering the ways in which software can amplify the powers of the individual, it is unacceptable to allow this situation to continue.

Our model is different from Grady Booch’s. His method, decomposition, is a valuable set of best practices and experiences finding analogs to Complex Systems. With great respect for Grady Booch and much thanks to the Borland Corporation for their two flagship products dBase and Delphi, which allowed me to exercise implementing abstract types as working objects, we will work through several books to find and disclose simplicities (Primitives) and the bridgework of Simplicities that grow virtual systems, living systems, and The RMCM.

The RMCM asserts that the term Complex Systems is unfortunately a redundancy. We also find through no fault of the above that “It’s Complex” is becoming idiomatic for “it’s complicated” and far too often used as a euphemism for “oops”. Our solution is simple : We rename the nondescript “Complex Systems” to its closet relative, “Intricacies”, and we simplify “Complex Systems” with “Complexity”.

Life is Complex; it’s complexity arising out of aggregates of simplicities arising from the laws and limits of The Rational. The Rational is our word for The Universe.

From here the book continues:

1.1 The Structure of Complex SystemsThe Structure of a Personal ComputerThe Structure of Plants and AnimalsThe Structure of MatterThe Structure of Social Institutions

1.2 The Inherent Complexity of Software
Why Software Is Inherently Complex
The Complexity of the Problem Domain
The Difficulty of Managing the Development Process
The Flexibility Possible through Software
The Problems of Characterizing the Behavior of Discrete Systems

We will meet you back here confident that you tried at least to read 1.1 and 1.2

1.3 The Five Attributes of a Complex System

We are concerned with providing a robust definition of Complexity. While our definition is robust, until we can walk you through the hierarchies step by step. We beg your patience and ask that all refrain from arguing about the contents of the book and of the above. Notwithstanding the above, and at the risk of disconcerting some, our model will show you that the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” is an oxymoron. The Model asserts that these are mutually exclusive terms. We are a long way from knowing how much of the brain is metabolism and how much is intelligence. We have rejected Artificial Intelligence and instead discuss an abstraction we assert is the forth experience. Your humble writer is its custodian. I am C4E – Custodian of the Forth Experience.

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(herein )
Intimacy is defined as the sharing of vulnerabilities.
Vulnerability is defined as inexpressed causality.

Vulnerabilities are also known as needs. Needs can be persistent and existential. Some needs are Complex, and some are Simple. The encapsulation, Vulnerabilities, will help us ignore the complicated specifics of needs, wants, and desires as well as shield us from moral and ethical digressions inappropriate for understanding The Machine.

We will treat machines as contexts because any given mechanism or machine implements a simple lever. Complex mechanisms (metabolisms) may implement several simple levers. There is a distance between simplicities and complexities within the same Rational Paradigm. As inorganic machines cross the boundary of a need for software, we must be able to discern between that over which we have direct control, that over which we have some control, and that which lies outside of our control. This model orders these conditions through encapsulations as they present in a lever. Some vulnerabilities are innate, some Cyclic and some abstract.
The innate condition is the machine. The Cyclic condition is the behavior of the machine. The abstract condition is its trajectory – plan objective motivation etc.

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Growth is the behavior of any given metabolism such that value aggregates persistent attributes with novel attributes. This simple memory analog binds memory and experience into metabolism (Complex Mechanism). Experience is the sole benefactor of the binding, designating memory if not as archaic, then at least as whimsical.

Notwithstanding the above, when we consider attributes, the Conditions are an imperative. The Lever is three Conditions, and the attributes arise as the Extense or Scope of persistent levers iterating conditionally novel Expressions and Acquisitions. Attributes are discrete, and there are four:

With these four attributes clearly defined We are suddenly free to explore The Rational as a purely semantic encapsulation. The needlessness of understanding math and science will aggregate those with other skills into this new discipline. Math, Science, and Complexity will be “an intellectual check and balance” that leaves almost no one behind. Statistics becomes a parochialism, the tool of last choice.

Cyclic: that which arises directly out of Function and Form such that Form implements Function and Function iterates Form (the Second Condition TM).

The Second Condition, the Cyclic, encapsulates and extends the four Attributes and the First Condition giving us a precise definition for movement and an introduction to the essential consequence of mass. Much easier to comprehend the flow of mass in our gravitational ocean, through lifting, climbing stairs, carrying luggage or groceries, we will find it more difficult to untangle the idea of floating due to our misconceptions surrounding inertia.

Nonetheless, because function is persistent (spinning) and contains no volume, the flow of difference or mass is predictably deflected. When this deflection returns Form to Delta we have only motion. However, when this deflection gives rise to an implementation of function, difference has moved. Function has iterated Form and Form has implemented function. This rational relationship between Form and Function provides the architecture for traversing any given trajectory. And provides us with aggregates that can shift mass.

Difference
The simplest of constructs. By difference we refer to any and all of that which can be said to be identifiable through our experience or through the experience of our technologies. In short difference is self evident. This is the most we can say about it in totality without a definition, and there is none. Specifically within the context of this model we can add only that,

1) Difference has some Cause,

2) Difference has some Effect.

From this alone we can construct a relationship for the purpose of modeling reality. We can presume difference as a starting point for all other definitions. Presumably, we can transpose the above and assert that Cause and Effect operate on difference. “Causality” asserts an origin of some kind. Effect asserts an outcome of a given Cause. Together they describe flow.

Flow that most resembles our concept is the flow of electricity. Electricity in our collective and most common experience can be switched on or switched off. In the practice or trade of electricity when a switch turns off the electricity the switch is said to be open and the flow of electricity must wait. When the electricity is turned on the switch is said to be closed and the flow of electricity resumes. You can think also in terms of a door or gate both of which can be opened and closed. When the gate or door is open pedestrian or vehicular traffic can flow and when the gate or door is closed pedestrian or vehicular traffic must wait.

These two simple encapsulations provide us with our definition for cause and effect.

When the switch is opened we say that difference is also opened. There is a difference between the two sides of the switch. When the switch is closed we say that difference is closed and there is no difference between the two sides of the switch. We can argue the details if we so choose however one could do worse than become comfortable with this difference expression defined as follows.

Abstract is defined as that which arises directly out the binding (the Third Condition TM).

While inertia describes the behavior of matter within the context of Motion and Force and this model deals instead with mass, inertia is helpful in as far as it encapsulates an object bound into a trajectory. In other words inertia and momentum describe the self evident experience of knowing in advance approximately where some material will land when it is tossed or thrown.

What makes the experience abstract is the capacity for “other aggregates” of material to cross that trajectory at any opportunity other than when the object is in our way. The trajectory is real. It is predictable, and reproducible, yet only for a moment does the material in motion have to exist at any given point along the trajectory to interfere with the aforementioned “other aggregates”. As long as the inertial motion along the given trajectory is undisturbed. We may rightfully assert that this is an experience of persistence. We may assert that while given points along a trajectory are existential, it is the binding (the entire trajectory) that is greater than the existential – the persistent

We must extrapolate the “trajectory” from experience. The abstract, our Third Condition TM is a powerful encapsulation. It tightly constrains hierarchical extrapolations while freeing us to engage complexity consistently and specifically to any scope or extense.